March 29–31, 2017March 29–31, 2017March 29–31, 2017

t h e t w e n t y - f o u r t ht h e t w e n t y - f o u r t ht h e t w e n t y - f o u r t h

f o r t h ef o r t h ef o r t h e

U n i v e r s i t y o f M i s s i s s i p p i • O x f o r d , M i s s i s s i p p i

OCB program cover.indd 1 3/1/17 9:10 AM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017

11:00 a.m. Welcome Lunch at Archives and Special Collections

Hosted by the Friends of the Library Archives and Special Collections Third Floor of the J. D. Williams Library

11:30 a.m. Faulkner at Random: Building a House, Building a Brand

Jay Satterfield Archives and Special Collections Third Floor of the J. D. Williams Library

1:15 p.m. How to Make a Book George Gibson Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics

2:30 p.m. Conservation Conversations: Creativity in Nature Writing

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, J. Drew Lanham, and Ann Fisher-Wirth Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics

5:00 p.m. Reading and Conversation Peter Heller Off Square Books

6:30 p.m. Big Bad Book Conference Meet-the-Authors Party

Catered by local chef John Currence Barksdale-Isom House 1003 Jefferson Ave. (Advance Ticket Required)

THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017

9:30 a.m. Remembering Harry Crews, Chronicler of the Roughneck South

Ted Geltner and Tom Thurman Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics

11:00 a.m. The Radical South Lecture: Narrating Activism in the 1960s Sharon Monteith Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics

Lunch on Your Own

1:30 p.m. The Art of Kate Freeman Clark Carolyn Brown, Annette Trefzer, Beth Batton, and James G. Thomas, Jr. University of Mississippi Museum

2:30 p.m. Reception and Book Signing Sponsored by the University Museum University of Mississippi Museum

4:00 p.m. Poetry on the Square Carolyn Hembree, Alison Pelegrin, Rodney Jones, and

Beth Ann Fennelly Southside Gallery 150 Courthouse Square

6:00 p.m. Thacker Mountain Radio Guest authors Rodney Jones and Hannah Tinti Guest musician Cody Rogers

Off Square Books

8:00 p.m. Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged Film screening, comments by Tom Thurman University of Mississippi Campus Lamar Hall, Room 129

FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017

9:15 a.m. Futureproofing Literature: Preaching to a New Choir

Lisa Lucas Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square

10:30 a.m. Southern Foodways Alliance Presents a Conversation with Toni Tipton-Martin

Toni Tipton-Martin and Sara Camp Milam Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square

12:00 p.m. Poetry Talk and Lunch Alison Pelegrin, speaker/poet

Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library 401 Bramlett Blvd. Sponsored by the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library (Advance Registration Appreciated)

1:30 p.m. Working with an Editor: An Editor and Author in Conversation

Lee Boudreaux and Michael Farris Smith Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square

2:45 p.m. Reading and Remarks Beth Macy

Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square

4:00 p.m. Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark Trae “The Liberal Redneck” Crowder, Drew Morgan,

and Corey Ryan Forrester Lafayette County Courthouse on the Oxford Square

5:00 p.m. Reading and Conversation Hari Kunzru in conversation with David Shirley Off Square Books on the Oxford Square

6:00 p.m. Closing Reception and Book Signing Off Square Books on the Oxford Square

8:00 p.m. WellRED Comedy Tour Trae “The Liberal Redneck” Crowder, Drew Morgan, and Corey Ryan Forrester

Lyric Theater on the Oxford Square 1006 Van Buren Ave. (Sold out) Book signing and meet-and-greet to follow performance

Special EventsWelcome Lunch

Wednesday, March 29, at 11:00 a.m.

Hosted by the Friends of the University of Mississippi Library, this lunch and lecture in the J. D. Williams Library’s Archives and Special Collections is a wonderful kick-off event.Free, but registration through conference website is appreciated.

Big Bad Book Conference Meet-the-Authors Party

Wednesday, March 29, at 6:30 p.m.

Held at the historic Barksdale-Isom House (1003 Jefferson Ave.), this much-loved opening reception is a lively fundraiser with wonderful food, drinks, and conversation between fellow conference attendees and guest writers. Food and drink catered by John Currence, Oxford chef and author of Pickles, Pigs, & Whis-key: Recipes from My Three Favorite Food Groups and Then Some and Big Bad Breakfast: The Most Important Book of the Day.

Reservations required. Purchase tickets through the conference website. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door.

Thacker Mountain Radio

Thursday, March 30, at 6:00 p.m.

Thacker Mountain Radio will have a special OCB show at Off Square Book on the Oxford Square (129 Courthouse Square).

Free.

Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged

Thursday, March 30, at 8:00 p.m.

Filmmaker Tom Thurman will screen his documentary film Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged on the University of Mississippi campus in Lamar Hall, Room 129.

Free.

Poetry Talk and Lunch

Friday, March 31, at noon

Hosted by the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library (401 Barmlett Blvd.), this lunch includes a talk on craft by poet Alison Pelegrin.Free, but registration through conference website is appreciated.

WellRED Comedy Tour

Friday, March 31, at 8:00 p.m.

Trae “The Liberal Redneck” Crowder, Corey Forrester, and Drew Morgan take the stage at Lyric Theater on the Oxford Square (1006 Van Buren Ave.). Book signing and meet-and-greet to follow performance.Sold out, ticket required.

The Children’s Book FestivalThe 2017 Children’s Book Festival, held in conjunction with the Oxford Conference for the Book, will again take place at the Ford Center for Performing Arts on Friday, March 31,

with more than 1,200 first and fifth graders from the schools of Lafayette County and Oxford in attendance. Chris Van Dusen, author of If I Built a Car, will present at 9:00 a.m. for the first graders, and Chris Grabenstein, author of Escape

from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, will present at 10:30 a.m. for the fifth graders. The Lafayette County Literacy Council sponsors the first-grade program and the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford sponsors the fifth-grade program. All 1,200 children have received their own copy of the book.

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The Participants

Beth Batton has directed the Oaks House Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, since July 2014. She worked for the Mississippi Museum of Art for eleven years, most recently as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for Mississippi Byways and as curator of the collection. Her work in community arts began in 1998 on staff at Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, an award-winning arts organization in Port Gibson, and she was the arts-based community development director at the Mississippi Arts Commission from 2001 to 2005.

Lee Boudreaux is vice president and editorial director of Lee Boudreaux Books. She joined Little, Brown in 2014 after nine years as editorial director of Ecco Press, a division of HarperCollins. Over the course of her career, Boudreaux has published a broad range of writers, including Daniel Bergner (Sing for Your Life), Patrick DeWitt (The Sisters Brothers), Ben Fountain (Billy Lynn’s

Long Halftime Walk), Affinity Konar (Mischling), Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles), Elizabeth Poliner (As Close to Us As Breathing), Ron Rash (Serena), Jennifer Senior (All Joy and No Fun), Curtis Sittenfeld (Prep), Adriana Trigiani (The Shoemaker’s Wife), David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle), and Michael Farris Smith (Desperation Road). Her books have become New York Times and national bestsellers, Oprah Book Club selections, and her authors have won or been nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, the Orange Prize, the Man Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards.

Carolyn J. Brown is a writer, editor, and independent scholar. She attended Duke University and then the University of North Carolina-Greensboro for her master’s degree and PhD. A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty was her first book, which won the Mississippi Library Association’s Award for Nonfiction in 2013 and was selected by the Mississippi Library Commission to represent the state of Mississippi at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., in 2012. She published her second biography, Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker, in November 2014. Brown’s most recent work is The Artist’s Sketch: A Biography of Painter Kate Freeman Clark, published by the University Press of Mississippi. She lives in Jackson, Mississippi, with her husband and two sons.

Ed Croom, of Oxford, Mississippi, is president of Croomia Botanical Scientific and Regulatory Consulting, and he was previously a full-time faculty member at the University of Mississippi. His work has appeared in the books Herbal and Magical Medicine, Taxol: Science and Application, and Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements, as well as in plant science and chemical journals. Photography from his recent book, The Land of Rowan Oak, is currently on display in the Center’s Gammill Gallery in Barnard Observatory.

Trae Crowder has earned national attention (or notoriety, depending on your viewpoint) for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of southern-fried intellectual comedy in the Southeast and beyond for the past six years. He is also a writer and a member of NBC Universal’s Talent Infusion Program after being invited to their prestigious Late Night

Writer’s Workshop in 2015. He recently published The Liberal Redneck Manifesto with Drew Morgan and Corey Forrester.

Beth Ann Fennelly teaches poetry writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, which she directed until 2016 when she was named Mississippi Poet Laureate. She has won grants from the NEA, United States Artists, and a Fulbright to Brazil. She has published three books of poetry (Open House, Tender Hooks, and Unmentionables) and one book of nonfiction (Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother), all with W.W. Norton. In 2014 she coauthored a novel, A Titled World, with her husband, Tom Franklin. They live in Oxford with their three children.

Ann Fisher-Wirth’s fourth book of poems, Dream Cabinet, was published by Wings Press in 2012. Her other books of poems are Carta Marina, Blue Window, and Five Terraces, and the chapbooks The Trinket Poems, Walking Wu-Wei’s Scroll, and Slide Shows. She coedited The Ecopoetry Anthology, published by Trinity University Press early in 2013. Her poems appear widely and have received numerous

awards, including a Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Rita Dove Poetry Award, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters poetry award, two Mississippi Arts Commission fellowships, and

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thirteen Pushcart nominations including a special mention. She teaches poetry workshops and seminars, twentieth-century American literature, and a wide range of courses in environmental literature at the University of Mississippi, where she also directs the minor in environmental studies.

Corey Forrester has been writing and performing stand up comedy since the age of sixteen . . . before he could legally work in a comedy club. His North Georgia roots have given him an affinity for southern wit and storytelling. He may often wear a PBR hat, but don’t assume there is anything blue collar about him. Corey has thoughts on everything from race to religion, politics and gender. He recently published The Liberal Redneck Manifesto with Trae Crowder and Drew Morgan.

Ted Geltner is a writer, editor, and journalism educator who specializes in biography, sports writing, and the history of sports journalism. His book Blood, Bone, and Marrow: A Biography of Harry Crews is the first full-length biography of the legendary novelist and journalist Harry Crews. Geltner has written extensively about sports journalism history, authoring articles and giving presentations on

subjects such as the history of Sports Illustrated magazine and literary journalism in sports. He is an associate professor at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, where he teaches courses in reporting, literary journalism, magazine journalism, and photojournalism. His work has been published in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, among others.

George Gibson is executive director at Grove Atlantic publishers in New York City. He has edited and/or published a number of acclaimed works of nonfiction over the years, including Dava Sobel’s Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, Mark Kurlansky’s Salt, and Carol Anderson’s White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.

Chris Grabenstein is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Island of Dr. Libris and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, as well as the coauthor (with James Patterson) of the bestselling series I Funny, House of Robots, and Treasure Hunters. Grabenstein writes fast-paced and fun page-turners for children and adults. He is also a playwright and screenwriter, not to mention a former advertising executive and

improvisational comedian. He and his four brothers used to put on skits and puppet shows in the basement of their home in Buffalo,

New York. Their mom and dad were the only paying customers. Admission was a nickel.

Peter Heller is the bestselling author of The Painter and The Dog Stars. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and a longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. His new novel, Celine, is a masterful novel of suspense—the story of Celine, an elegant, aristocratic private eye who specializes in reuniting families, trying to make amends for a loss in her own past.

Carolyn Hembree was born in Bristol, Tennessee. Her debut poetry collection, Skinny, was published by Kore Press in 2012. In 2016, Trio House Books published her second collection, Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague, selected by Neil Shepard for the 2015 Trio Award and by Stephanie Strickland for the 2015 Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. Her

work has appeared in Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, the Journal, Poetry Daily, and other publications. She has received grants and fellowships from PEN, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the Southern Arts Federation. An assistant professor at the University of New Orleans, Carolyn teaches writing and serves as poetry editor of Bayou Magazine.

Rodney Jones is the author of eleven books of poems. His many honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Harper Lee Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award, and he has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. Village Prodigies, his new book, has been described by Richard Russo as both a novel and a book of poems. Jones teaches in the low-residency MFA creative writing program at Warren Wilson College and lives in New Orleans and Southern Illinois.

Hari Kunzru is the author of five novels, The Impressionist, Transmission, Gods without Men, My Revolutions, and, most recently, White Tears. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and his short stories and journalism have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, the Guardian, and the New Yorker. He is the recipient of fellowships from the

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Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library, and the American Academy in Berlin. He lives in Brooklyn.

J. Drew Lanham was born and raised in rural South Carolina. He is an associate professor and certified wildlife biologist in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Clemson University. While he is widely published in his scholarly field, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature will be his first book for a general audience. He lives in Seneca, South Carolina.

Lisa Lucas is the executive director of the National Book Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, she served as the publisher of Guernica, a nonprofit online magazine focusing on writing that explores the intersection of art and politics with an international and diverse focus. Prior to that she served as director of education at the Tribeca Film Institute, on the development team at Steppenwolf

Theatre Company, and as a consultant for the Sundance Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and ReelWorks Teen Filmmaking. Lucas also serves on the literary council of the Brooklyn Book Festival.

Beth Macy is the author of Truevine, the true story of two African American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks for more than thirteen years, and of their mother, who risked her life to free them. The book was New York Times bestseller and a New York Times notable book of 2016. Her work has appeared in national magazines and newspapers and the Roanoke Times, where her reporting won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard. She lives in Roanoke, Virginia.

Sara Camp Milam is the Southern Foodways Alliance’s managing editor. She has a BA in Spanish from Princeton University and an MA in folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously worked as an associate editor at the Oxford American magazine.

Sharon Monteith is professor of American studies at the University of Nottingham and founding codirector of the Centre for Research in Race and Rights. She has published widely on southern cultural history, literature, film, and media, including serving as co-volume editor, with Allison Graham, of the Media volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. She was a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow at the University of Memphis, where she researched issues of race and gender in the Mississippi Delta. Her most recent book is The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American South, and her forthcoming book is SNCC’s Stories: Narrative Culture and the African American Freedom Struggle in the 1960s South. She was recently awarded a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship to write The Civil Rights Movement: A Literary History.

Drew Morgan hails from East Tennessee and draws on his experiences as a small-town son of a preacher man and former public defender who has lived in South Africa, Australia, Miami, Boston, and (currently) New York City. He recently published The Liberal Redneck Manifesto with Trae Crowder and Corey Forrester. He is a good dancer.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of three books of poetry, Miracle Fruit (2003), At the Drive-in Volcano (2007), and Lucky Fish (2011). Her newest poetry collection, Oceanic, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon and her nature essay collection, World of Wonder, is due out from Milkweed, both in 2018. She is poetry editor of Orion and is the Grisham Writer in Residence in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program. Her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Tin House.

Alison Pelegrin is the author of several poetry collections, including Hurricane Party, Big Muddy River of Stars, and Waterlines. The recipient of fellowships from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, Pelegrin’s poems have appeared in Poetry, the Southern Review, Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, and Barn Owl Review. She earned her MFA at the University

of Arkansas, where for two years she was the director of the Arkansas Writers in the Schools Program. Pelegrin teaches

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English at Southeastern Louisiana University and lives in Covington, Louisiana, with her family.

Jay Satterfield, special collections librarian at Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College, is author of “The World’s Best Books”: Taste, Culture, and the Modern Library. His essays have appeared in numerous journals and edited collections, including the forthcoming Faulkner and Print Culture and The Oxford Companion to the Book. Satterfield’s curating work includes nine major exhibitions at Dartmouth University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Iowa. Two of these exhibitions were accompanied by published collection guides under his editorship.

David Shirley is a journalist whose work has appeared in Oxford American, the Brooklyn Rail, Chicago Review, Spin, Rolling Stone, and USA Today. He is the coauthor, with Nancy Webster, of A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park: How a Community Reclaimed and Transformed New York City’s Waterfront.

Michael Farris Smith is the author of Rivers and The Hands of Strangers. Rivers was named in numerous best books of the year lists and garnered the 2014 Mississippi Library Association’s author award for fiction. His short fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and his essays have appeared in the New York Times, Catfish Alley, Writer’s Bone, and elsewhere. His latest novel is Desperation Road, and he is at work on his next novel, The Fighter. Both books are with Lee Boudreaux Books, a specialty fiction imprint with Little, Brown. Smith lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.

James G. Thomas, Jr. is an associate director for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and the director of the Oxford Conference for the Book. He is editor of Conversations with Barry Hannah, an editor of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, coeditor of Faulkner and the Black Literatures of the Americas and Faulkner and History (both with Jay Watson), and an associate

editor of the forthcoming Mississippi Encyclopedia. Thomas is also co-curator, with Annette Trefzer, of Lasting Impressions: Restoring Kate Freeman Clark, an exhibition that pays tribute to the prodigious and prolific artist from Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Tom Thurman has produced and directed numerous independent documentaries on film, music, and literary figures. His subjects have included Nick Nolte, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Harry Crews, Jerry Wexler, Tod Browning, John Ford, Hunter S. Thompson, and Sam Peckinpah. His film Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged is an intimate portrait of the controversial, Georgia-born author featuring candid and exclusive interviews with Crews and his friends and consorts. As a producer/writer for Kentucky Educational Television in Lexington, Thurman directs documentaries for the series Kentucky Muse, a showcase for artists with Kentucky roots. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two children.

Toni Tipton-Martin’s love affair with African American cooks and their recipes began more than thirty years ago when she was a food and nutrition writer for the Los Angeles Times. Her book The Jemima Code presents more than 150 black cookbooks that range from a rare 1827 house servant’s manual to modern classics by authors such as Edna Lewis and Vertamae Grosvenor. These cookbooks offer firsthand evidence

that African Americans cooked creative masterpieces from meager provisions, educated young chefs, operated food businesses, and nourished the African American community through the long struggle for human rights. The Jemima Code transforms America’s most maligned kitchen servant into an inspirational and powerful model of culinary wisdom and cultural authority.

Annette Trefzer teaches American literature and literary theory and is co-owner of Bozarts Gallery in Water Valley, Mississippi. She is the author of Disturbing Indians: The Archaeology of Southern Fiction and the coeditor with Ann J. Abadie of several volumes of critical essays on William Faulkner. Trefzer is also co-curator, with James G. Thomas, Jr., of Lasting Impressions: Restoring Kate Freeman Clark, an exhibition that pays tribute to the prodigious and prolific artist from Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Chris Van Dusen was born in Portland, Maine, on St. Patrick’s Day, 1960. One of five boys, Van Dusen spent most of his spare time drawing pictures. He kept drawing through elementary, middle, and high school, and in 1982 he graduated with a BFA from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. After working as an art director for a magazine and then for a greeting card company, he turned to freelance illustration

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in 1988. He soon realized the work he enjoyed most were the illustrations he produced for kids. In the early 1990s he came up with an idea for a children’s book. That story became his first book, Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee, which was published in 2000. Since then, he has written and illustrated seven books, including If I Built a Car, and illustrated ten more for other authors.

David Wharton is the Center for the Study of Southern Culture’s director for documentary studies and an assistant professor of Southern Studies. His first book, The Soul of a Small Texas Town: Photographs, Memories, and History from McDade, was published in 2000, and he published his second book of photographs, Small Town South, in 2013. Wharton’s most recent book is The Power of Belief: Spiritual Landscapes from the Rural South, published in 2016. Photography from The Power of Belief is currently on display in the Center’s Gammill Gallery in Barnard Observatory.

Barksdale-Isom House—The old Isom Place (circa 1835) is one of Oxford’s oldest and most historic houses. Built by Dr. Thomas Isom, it was his home, office, and apothecary. The house was expanded in 1840 and again in 1862; the charter of the University of Mississippi was signed in its dining room, which also served as the University’s first boardroom. Since 2000, the building has housed the Barksdale Reading Institute.

Center for the Study of Southern Culture—The Center for the Study of Southern Culture, founded in the mid-1970s, is an educational institute at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, and the first regional studies center in the coun-try. The Center’s mission is to investigate, document, interpret, and teach about the American South through academic inquiry and publications, documentary studies of film, photography, and oral history, and public outreach programs. The interdisciplinary Southern Studies faculty and the undergraduate and graduate degree programs are the core of the Center’s work.

At the heart of the Center’s mission is the academic program. Its undergraduate and graduate curricula incorporate traditional disciplines of the arts, humanities, and social sciences to form an interdisciplinary framework for studying the South. The Center promotes research on the South’s varied cultures by supporting the work of its faculty, staff, students, alumni, and visiting schol-ars. It offers opportunities for increasing understanding of south-ern culture through publications, conferences, lectures, and docu-mentary media. Because of its location, the Center focuses much of its work on Mississippi and the Deep South, while at the same time exploring the region as a whole, both in its American and global contexts. Interests of Center faculty, staff, and students are always changing, and particular emphases include documenta-ry studies, literature, history, religion, foodways, music, race and ethnicity, and globalization and identity.

Over the last quarter century the Center has become a focal point for innovative education and research on the American South, strengthening the University’s instructional program in the humanities, promoting scholarship on many aspects of south-ern culture, and encouraging public understanding of the South as a diverse and complex space.

Children’s Book Festival—The 2017 Children’s Book Festival will be held on Friday, March 31, at the Ford Center for Performing Arts. The festival serves more than 1,200 first graders and fifth graders from schools in Lafayette County and Oxford. Committees made up of local school librarians, teachers, and representatives from the Lafayette County Literacy Council (sponsor of the first grade), Junior Auxiliary (sponsor of the fifth grade), and Square Books, Jr. choose the book each year. The Conference then invites those authors to present programs to each grade. That afternoon, both authors will sign books at Square Books, Jr.

Friends of the Library—Founded in 1940, the Friends of the Library provides vital support to the J. D. Williams Library. Membership dues support new acquisitions, thus keeping the library strong for students and faculty.

A Special Gammill Gallery Photography Exhibition

There is a special documentary photography exhibition of works from the books of Oxford photographers Ed Croom (The Land of Rowan Oak: An Exploration of Faulkner’s Natural World) and David Wharton (The Power of Belief: Spiritual Landscapes from the Rural South) in the Gammill Gallery in

Barnard Observatory.The Gammill Gallery

is located in the west wing of Barnard Observatory. Named for Lynn and Stewart Gammill of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, longtime supporters of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, the Gammill Gallery hosts a

variety of exhibitions devoted to documentary photography of the American South.

The Gammill Gallery has featured the work of numer-ous photographers, includ-ing Bern and Franke Keating, Birney Imes, Jack Kotz, Todd Bertolaet, David Wharton, Wiley Prewitt, and Jane Rule Burdine. Each year, the gal-lery exhibits works produced by students in the Southern Studies program.

The Gammill Gallery is open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

J. D. Williams Library / Department of Archives and Special Collections—Located on the third floor of the J. D. Williams Library, the Department of Archives and Special Collections houses important collections of Mississippiana. Since 1975, the primary purpose of Archives and Special Collections has been to acquire, conserve, and make accessible rare books, manuscripts, maps, visual and audio materials, and ephemera re-lated to the University of Mississippi, the state of Mississippi, and the blues. To accompany Jay Satterfield’s Wednesday lec-ture, the UM Department of Archives and Special Collections will feature a small exhibit of first editions of Faulkner’s Random House books, Modern Library editions, as well as other notewor-thy Faulkner first editions from the collections. Also, an exhibit dedicated to Mississippi’s bicentennial will also be on display dur-ing the conference. Mississippi: 200 Years of Statehood includes Mississippi-related sheet music, political memorabilia, early Mississippi government documents, historic maps, among many other items showcasing aspects of the state’s two hundred-year history from UM’s archival collections.

Lafayette County Courthouse—The Lafayette County Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was constructed in 1872 to replace an earlier building burned during the Civil War. The courthouse currently houses several judicial court-rooms and related offices. The courthouse also plays a significant role in William Faulkner’s fictional Jefferson County. The court-house appears in multiple works. These include stories featuring the lawyer Gavin Stevens (including Knight’s Gambit), the dramatic end-ing to The Sound and the Fury, and elements of Go Down, Moses.

The Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics—The Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics’ mis-sion is to create better understanding of the media, politicians, and the role of the First Amendment in our democracy. The center is funded through a $5 million grant from the Freedom Forum, a foundation dedicated to educating people about the im-portance of a free press and the First Amendment.

Southside Gallery—Southside Gallery, 150 Courthouse Square, has exhibited work by artists predominantly from the Southeast since it was established in 1993. It is a vital part of Oxford’s art community committed to promoting the arts through its program of monthly exhibitions, frequent artist re-ceptions, and other public events.

Square Books—Square Books is a general independent book-store in three separate buildings (about one hundred feet apart) on the historic town square of Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi and many great writers, including William Faulkner, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, and, for a time, both Willie Morris and John Grisham. The main store, Square Books, is in a two-story building with a cafe and balcony on the second floor; Off Square Books is a few doors down from the main store and has lifestyle sections such as gardening and cook-books; and Square Books, Jr., the children’s bookstore, is in a building on the east side of the square.

Square Books is known for its strong selection of literary fiction,

books on the American South and by southern writers, a large in-ventory of reduced-price remainders, and its emphasis on books for children. The store hosts the popular Thacker Mountain Radio show and more than one hundred and fifty author events a year.

Thacker Mountain Radio—Thacker Mountain Radio is a live radio show featuring weekly author readings and a wide array of musical perfor-mances from the Square in Oxford, Mississippi. The free show is taped and broadcast every Thursday at 6:00 p.m. during the fall and spring and rebroadcast every Saturday night on Mississippi Public Radio.

UM Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program—Currently celebrating its sixteenth year, the UM MFA program has been ranked one of the Atlantic Monthly’s “Top Five Up and Coming Programs” and is listed among the Top Fifty MFA Programs by Poets & Writers. The Poets & Writers MFA rank-ings “measure sixteen distinct program features for each of the 148 full-residency programs.” Features include funding, cost of living, selectivity, teaching load, curricular structure, and place-ment of graduates. The MFA program specializes in fiction and poetry, and supplements specialties with creative nonfic-tion, screen writing, and eco-writing. Students benefit from the well-endowed readings series and interactions with the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence, a yearly appointment for an emerging writer. A student-run readings series and its literary magazine, The Yalobusha Review, are just some of the opportuni-ties for students.

University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses—The University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses complex serves as a cultural center for the university community and beyond. Among its holdings are southern folk art, Greek and Roman antiquities, nineteenth-century scientific instruments, and American fine art. Part of the museum complex is Rowan Oak, a historic literary legacy that was once the home of William Faulkner, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Rowan Oak was renovated and reopened to the public in 2001 and continues to draw international visitors each year. The museum also owns the Walton-Young Historic House—once home to critic and sati-rist Stark Young.

The University Museum is dedicated to research, educa-tion, documentation, exhibiting the art and cultural heritage of Mississippi and of the American South, and the presentation of art, science, and history. Activities include exhibitions, demon-strations, lectures, community events, educational workshops, and events for children, all geared to enhance learning at the University of Mississippi.

The University Museum is open to the public 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Admission and parking are free. Telephone: 662-915-7073. Website: www.museum.olemiss.edu.

Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha

Conference“Faulkner and Money:

The Economies of Yoknapatawpha and Beyond”

July 23–27, 2017Like many of his readers, William Faulkner delighted in the vari-ous and often surprising ways money changes hands: in complex business transactions, handshake deals, elaborate wagers, frauds and con games, tainted payoffs, bad investments, and the like. At the 44th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, reg-istrants will join scholars, educators, students, and other lovers of things Faulkner to follow the proverbial money in the au-thor’s work, life, and career. Five days of lectures, pan-els, tours, exhibits, and other presentations will explore the multifaceted economics of Yoknapatawpha County, the Faulkner oeuvre, and the lit-erary profession.

This summer’s “Faulkner and Money” conference is noteworthy for reasons that go beyond the broad applicability and timeli-ness of its topic or the in-ternational reputations of its distinguished keynote speakers. “Faulkner and Money” also marks the return of Oxford artist Glennray Tutor to the se-ries of colorful posters that have for decades provided Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha with an iconic public face. For 2017, Tutor, whose work also adorns the posters from 1988 to 1993, will be represented by his whimsically named, appropriately themed can-vas, Will Varner’s Store.

Conference events also include the popular “Teaching Faulkner” sessions led by James Carothers, Brian McDonald, Charles Peek, Terrell Tebbetts, and Theresa Towner. Bookseller Seth Berner will lead a presentation on “Collecting Faulkner,” the John Davis Williams Library will exhibit rare Faulkner ma-terials, and University Museums will welcome conference reg-istrants to a special exhibit. Optional daylong guided tours will visit Faulkner-related locations in northeast Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta.

The Mississippi Encyclopedia

to Be PublishedWork on a Center project that began in 2003 is at long last winding up. The Mississippi Encyclopedia—a mammoth col-laboration that includes more than 1,600 entries, 1,451 pag-es, and features more than 700 scholars who wrote entries on ev-ery county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists—will be in print and for sale this May. This is the first encyclopedic treat-ment of the state since 1907.

The volume, published by the University Press of Mississippi, will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. It will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present.

Each entry in The Mississippi Encyclopedia provides an author-itative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. It also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, contemporary issues, drama, educa-tion, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, ge-ography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art.

The Mississippi Encyclopedia includes solid, clear information contained in a single volume, offering with clarity and schol-arship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. “We hope everyone who picks up the book will find surprises,” said co-editor Ted Ownby. “Any good encyclopedia has detailed, thor-ough, smart information on topics people want to find. So, from a journalist or traveler to a scholar or teacher to a kid doing a school project, everyone should find ways to use the book. But holding it in their hands, they should find all sorts of things they hadn’t thought to look up.”

Now that editorial work on The Mississippi Encyclopedia has wrapped up, the Center is working with the University Press of Mississippi to plan a number of events to publicize and discuss the book. Events will commence in Oxford in May, with local bookstore Square Books hosting. Other already-planned events include a special celebration just prior to the Mississippi Book Festival weekend in Jackson and visits to independent bookstores across the state. Those wanting to make suggestions or extend invitations can write to Ted Ownby via e-mail at hsownby@ole-miss.edu.

Support the Conference Friends of the conference may choose to support either by making a gift to the conference’s general fund or by directing their contribution to the conference’s endowment fund.

General Fund We are proud that the conference is free and open to the public. This does, however, require fundraising in support of author travel, stipends, venue rental, and the many other things necessary for planning a three-day-long event. Any amount helps in our mission to bring celebrated writers to Oxford.

If you do wish to support the conference, visit oxfordconfer-enceforthebook.com for information on online giving. If you prefer to send a check, you may mail it to the following address: The University of Mississippi Foundation – OCB General Support, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677-1848.

The Abadie Endowment An endowment, started in the summer of 2011, honors retired Center associate director Ann Abadie. Past and present members of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture’s Advisory Committee started the fund, and with encouragement from the Center’s partners at Square Books, many past participants in the conference made contributions as well.

Contributions to the endowment are very much welcome. Anyone interested in making a contribution can mail it to The University of Mississippi Foundation – Abadie Endowment, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677-1848. Checks should specify that they are in support of the OCB Endowment.

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Please make checks payable to The University of Mississippi Foundation and mail this form and payment to CSSC/OCB • PO Box 1848 • Barnard Observatory • University, MS 38677

To give online, please visit oxfordconferenceforthebook.com Appeal: Program

In Fond Memory of Ron Borne

November 17, 1938–October 18, 2016

The Twenty-Fourth Oxford Conference for the Book

The University of Mississippi • Oxford, Mississippi

The University complies with all applicable laws regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity in all its activities and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law because of age, creed, color, national origin, race, religion, sex, handicap, veteran, or other status.

MISSISSIPPI HUMANITIES COUNCILThis program is financially assisted by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Mississippi Humanities Council. MHC’s purpose is to provide public programs in traditional liberal arts disciplines to serve nonprofit groups in Mississippi.

For more information concerning the conference, contact:

Center for the Study of Southern CultureThe University of Mississippi

P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677-1848telephone 662-915-5993 • fax 662-915-5814 • e-mail cssc@olemiss.edu • oxfordconferenceforthebook.com

For tourist information, contact:Visit Oxford102 Ed Perry Boulevard • Oxford, MS 38655telephone 800-758-9177 662-232-2367fax 662-232-8680www.oxfordcvb.com

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Square Books, Lafayette County Literacy Council, Friends of the J. D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi Museum, Overby Center for Southern Journalism

and Politics, John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writers Fund, Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, and the Lafayette County & Oxford Public Library.

The conference is partially funded by the University of Mississippi, a contribution from the R&B Feder Foundation for the Beaux Arts, grants from the Mississippi Humanities Council and Mississippi Arts

Commission, and promotional support from Visit Oxford.

For information about books and authors, contact:Square Books160 Courthouse Square, Oxford, MS 38655telephone 800-468-4001• 662-236-2262 fax 662-234-9630www.squarebooks.com

MISSISSIPPI ARTS COMMISSIONThis program is funded in part by a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, funded by the Mississippi legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace Foundation, and other private sources.